Thursday, September 6, 2012

by Deborah BlumThe Phi Phi
Islands sit off the western coast of Thailand, floating like
jewels in a turquoise sea, a picture-perfect image of a tropical getaway.
Director Danny Boyle filmed his 2000 psychothriller, The Beach, on the largest
of those islands and if you know the movie, you know, despite the gem-like
setting the story ends badly.They say, though, that the movie put the largest of the
islands, Ko Phi Phi Don, on the map as a tourist getaway, a reasonably priced
home to glittering beaches and unlimited partying. And that’s undoubtedly what
drew two young sisters from a small Canadian village, just north of the Maine
border, to travel there for a summer break from their university studies.Noemi Belanger was 26 and her sister, Audrey, 20, when they
planned the June vacation. Both sisters lived in their hometown of
Pohenegamook, Quebec. Did I mention that it was small, the kind of place where
people know each other, stay close? The population is about 3,000 and both
girls worked for their father, Carl, in his grocery store before
starting university classes. They were happy girls, friendly, residents say,
involved in their community, helping out at the local library, at public
beaches.

This summer, they were ready to fly a little, indulge in a
splashy vacation. So they saved their money and flew to Thailand in June, went
to visit the Phi Phi Islands. And there, as a flood of mid-June news stories
made obvious, things went very wrong. Very, very wrong.

The stories were puzzled, horrified. A story in
Canada’s National Post described a hotel maid finding the sisters dead in their
room, with lesions tracked across their bodies, their fingernails and toenails
turned an odd grayish blue. They were huddled in their beds, relayed the
Global Post, smeared with vomit and blood.

Rumors flew of an exotic poison, of a lurking killer.
Dismissive statements from the police added to the sense of mystery. “We found
many kinds of over-the-counter-drugs, including ibuprofen, which can cause
serious effects on the stomach,” one
investigator said, sounding as if packing painkillers was the real
problem. Mysterious poison deaths of tourists visiting the Phi Phi Islands were
recalled: the 2009 death of
a Seattle woman, still unsolved today. The similar and also unexplained
death of a 22-year-old woman from Norway the same year. An odd
cluster of deaths in another Thai city during winter of last
year, including a 23-year-old woman from New Zealand. The conspiracy theories
expanded to
include the unexplained deaths of two young women in Vietnam
this summer. “Is this a cover-up?” asked a
letter writer in the Bangkok Post after the police
went on from the ibuprofen theory to one that involved food poisoning.

And not just any food poisoning. A leak from
the investigation suggested that detectives were considering
the possibility that the sisters had dined – somewhere – on either poisonous
mushrooms or blowfish, sometimes called pufferfish or fugu. The fishes are
considered a delicacy but they must be carefully prepared to exclude any
contact with the liver or other internal organs, which contain an exceptionally
potent neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin.

Neither of these suggestions, though, were an ideal match
for the described symptoms. Tetrodotoxin is most famous for its ability
to induce a corpse-like paralysis in victims; they may remain alert but unable
to move or communicate, gradually suffocating as the lungs fail. Poisonous
mushrooms tend to kill by gradually destroying the liver. As quickly as the
suggestion was floated it seemed to disappear, leaving the questions to further
simmer over the summer.

Until last week, when a preliminary autopsy report was
announced, which apparently indicated a toxic level of exposure. According to
news reports, toxicologists in Thailand now believed that the
two sisters had been drinking a popular local cocktail that contains
Coca-Cola, cough syrup, ground up leaves from the kratom tree, and the
well-known mosquito repellent DEET and is admired for its hallucinogenic
qualities. In their case, apparently, too much DEET had ended up in the drink.

Phi Phi is renowed as a rites-of-passage destination for
20-somethings and it transforms from a haven for day-trippers in the sunshine
to a less beguiling island party after dark.

Alcohol is just one of the many ingredients that Phi Phi’s
party people mix in their buckets.

Each bucket is a concoction of all kinds of juices and
substances that are mixed into containers of various sizes and usually sucked
through straws all night long.

It’s a nicely sinister portrait of cocktails in the Phi Phi
islands. Still my first reaction was a kind of “DEET, really?” skepticism.
We’re not talking about anything like tetrodotoxin here; this is a compound we
routinely spray all over ourselves on camping trips and summer hikes. Our
Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about 30 percent of the U.S. population
uses a DEET-infused product every year. Plenty of us have accidentally
swallowed a little during an over-enthusiastic assault on mosquitoes without
getting sick (including myself). Not that you’d want to take it by the
tumbler, of course. But it’s reasonable to ask whether it would take a
tumbler to kill you

The short answer, yes, pretty close to that. DEET, by
the way, stands for N.N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, which is basically chemist-code
for a formula that includes the familiar elements carbon, hydrogen,
nitrogen and oxygen. It apparently works as a
repellent by disrupting insect olfaction-detection systems. And an EPA
analysis found that it is slightly toxic to birds, fish, and aquatic invertebrates
and has”very low toxicity potential” in mammals, such as ourselves.

So, it’s not surprising that the Agency for Toxic Substances
and Disease Registry reports that
people have committed suicide with the repellent but only by drinking full
“bottles of DEET” along with quantities of alcohol. In other words, The stories were puzzled, horrified. A story in
Canada’s National Post described a hotel maid finding the sisters dead in their
room, with lesions tracked across their bodies, their fingernails and toenails
turned an odd grayish blue. They were huddled in their beds, relayed the
Global Post, smeared with vomit and blood.

Rumors flew of an exotic poison, of a lurking killer.
Dismissive statements from the police added to the sense of mystery. “We found
many kinds of over-the-counter-drugs, including ibuprofen, which can cause
serious effects on the stomach,” one
investigator said, sounding as if packing painkillers was the real
problem. Mysterious poison deaths of tourists visiting the Phi Phi Islands were
recalled the 2009 death of
a Seattle woman still unsolved today, and the similar and also unexplained
death of a 22-year-old woman from Norway the same year. An odd
cluster of deaths in another Thai city during winter of last
year, including a 23-year-old woman from New Zealand. The conspiracy theories
expanded to
include the unexplained deaths of two young women in Vietnam
this summer. “Is this a cover-up?” asked a
letter writer in the Bangkok Post after the police
went on from the ibuprofen theory to one that involved food poisoning.

And not just any food poisoning. A leak from
the investigation suggested that detectives were considering
the possibility that the sisters had dined – somewhere – on either poisonous
mushrooms or blowfish, sometimes called pufferfish or fugu. The fishes are
considered a delicacy but they must be carefully prepared to exclude any
contact with the liver or other internal organs, which contain an exceptionally
potent neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin.

Neither of these suggestions, though, were an ideal match
for the described symptoms. Tetrodotoxin is most famous for its ability
to induce a corpse-like paralysis in victims; they may remain alert but unable
to move or communicate, gradually suffocating as the lungs fail. Poisonous
mushrooms tend to kill by gradually destroying the liver. As quickly as the
suggestion was floated it seemed to disappear, leaving the questions to further
simmer over the summer.

Until last week, when a preliminary autopsy report was
announced, which apparently indicated a toxic level of exposure. According to
news reports, toxicologists in Thailand now believed that the
two sisters had been drinking a popular local cocktail that contains
Coca-Cola, cough syrup, ground up leaves from the kratom tree, and the
well-known mosquito repellent DEET and is admired for its hallucinogenic
qualities. In their case, apparently, too much DEET had ended up in the drink.

Phi Phi is renowed as a rites-of-passage destination for
20-somethings and it transforms from a haven for day-trippers in the sunshine
to a less beguiling island party after dark.

Alcohol is just one of the many ingredients that Phi Phi’s
party people mix in their buckets.

Each bucket is a concoction of all kinds of juices and
substances that are mixed into containers of various sizes and usually sucked
through straws all night long.

It’s a nicely sinister portrait of cocktails in the Phi Phi
islands. Still my first reaction was a kind of “DEET, really?” skepticism.
We’re not talking about anything like tetrodotoxin here; this is a compound we
routinely spray all over ourselves on camping trips and summer hikes. Our
Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about 30 percent of the U.S. population
uses a DEET-infused product every year. Plenty of us have accidentally
swallowed a little during an over-enthusiastic assault on mosquitoes without
getting sick (including myself). Not that you’d want to take it by the
tumbler, of course. But it’s reasonable to ask whether it would take a
tumbler to kill you

The short answer, yes, pretty close to that. DEET, by
the way, stands for N.N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, which is basically chemist-code
for a formula that includes the familiar elements carbon, hydrogen,
nitrogen and oxygen. It apparently works as a
repellent by disrupting insect olfaction-detection systems. And an EPA
analysis found that it is slightly toxic to birds, fish, and aquatic invertebrates
and has”very low toxicity potential” in mammals, such as ourselves.

So, it’s not surprising that the Agency for Toxic Substances
and Disease Registry reports that
people have committed suicide with the repellent but only by drinking full
“bottles of DEET” along with quantities of alcohol. In other words, evidence is that it would take that tumbler full to kill you. I also looked at
the other ingredients in the suspect cocktail, except for the Coca-Cola (which
hasn’t contained cocaine for more than a century). The codeine in cough
syrup could, in a high enough amount, add to a sleepy buzz. And kratom –
while known to be hallucinogenic – can also bring on a numbing lethargy in too
high a dose. It is generally, though, considered to be most risky for its
addictive qualities than for its acute toxicity issues.

Which brings us back to the DEET theory of death. And that
requires someone to pour a ridiculously large quantity of this pale yellowish
liquid into a drink served to two sisters from Canada. Could someone be
that careless? Sure, especially if they were enjoying the island brew
themselves. Still, only the Belanger sisters died after that night on the
beach; under this theory only one over-toxic cocktail was served. And that does
raise a few other questions. For instance, why – as you may have noticed from
my fatality list – is it mostly young women who are dying of mysterious
chemical poisonings in a tropical paradise?

Even Phuket Wan (which seems remarkably tough-minded for a
publication focused on tourism) seems unconvinced by the mosquito repellent
hypothesis, noting that it would be unusual for only two people to be poisoned
by a shared bucket drink.

Could it be a cover up, the paper asked, for a heavy-handed
use of insecticide in the sisters’ room? Insecticides have been suspected in some
of the other deaths. Could it be that island authorities were trying to hide
the existence of a killer who was deliberately spiking drinks?
Or, slightly less creepily, that the women had been killed by excessive
use of insecticides by hotel management and that authorities were moving to
protect reputations? “All options remain open,” the paper
warned, until the authorities produce evidence of a much more
meticulous investigation.

And, yes, you’ll find me in the “options remain open” camp
as well. It may well be that this is as simple as it sounds, two
trusting travelers from rural Canada drinking an untrustworthy bar
drink.

Still, at the moment, if I felt a sudden urge to go party in
the Phi Phi islands, you would find me insisting on a nicely capped container –
and, I think, opening that bottle myself. Which, frankly, makes good
sense -- most of the time anyway.

evidence is that it would take that tumbler full to kill you. I also looked at
the other ingredients in the suspect cocktail, except for the Coca-Cola (which
hasn’t contained cocaine for more than a century). The codeine in cough
syrup could, in a high enough amount, add to a sleepy buzz. And kratom –
while known to be hallucinogenic – can also bring on a numbing lethargy in too
high a dose. It is generally, though, considered to be most risky for its
addictive qualities than for its acute toxicity issues.

Which brings us back to the DEET theory of death. And that
requires someone to pour a ridiculously large quantity of this pale yellowish
liquid into a drink served to two sisters from Canada. Could someone be
that careless? Sure, especially if they were enjoying the island brew
themselves. Still, only the Belanger sisters died after that night on the
beach; under this theory only one over-toxic cocktail was served. And that does
raise a few other questions. For instance, why – as you may have noticed from
my fatality list – is it mostly young women who are dying of mysterious
chemical poisonings in a tropical paradise?

Even Phuket Wan (which seems remarkably tough-minded for a
publication focused on tourism) seems unconvinced by the mosquito repellent
hypothesis, noting that it would be unusual for only two people to be poisoned
by a shared bucket drink.

Could it be a cover up, the paper asked, for a heavy-handed
use of insecticide in the sisters’ room? Insecticides have been suspected in some
of the other deaths. Could it be that island authorities were trying to hide
the existence of a killer who was deliberately spiking drinks?
Or, slightly less creepily, that the women had been killed by excessive
use of insecticides by hotel management and that authorities were moving to
protect reputations? “All options remain open,” the paper
warned, until the authorities produce evidence of a much more
meticulous investigation.

And, yes, you’ll find me in the “options remain open” camp
as well. It may well be that this is as simple as it sounds, two
trusting travelers from rural Canada drinking an untrustworthy bar
drink.

Still, at the moment, if I felt a sudden urge to party in
the Phi Phi islands, you would find me insisting on a nicely capped container –
and, I think, opening that bottle myself. Which, frankly, makes good
sense -- most of the time anyway.